1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sheet material feeding apparatus that feeds a sheet material such as a postal matter.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a sheet material feeding apparatus of this kind, there is known a type in which sheet materials are placed in a standing position on a floor belt and they are conveyed to a feed-out unit as the floor belt runs. At the feed-out unit, sheet materials are fed out one by one as feed-out roller or feed-out belt rotates.
However, in some cases, stacked sheet materials are conveyed in an inclined state as relative to the feed-out unit as being affected so for one reason or another or the stacked sheet materials are already set in an inclined state on the floor belt before they are conveyed. In such cases, the sheet materials are not evenly brought into contact with the feed-out roller or feed-out belt, and thus an uneven contacting state is created. When the sheet materials are fed out in this state, such problems occur that sheets are skewed and continuous feeding out of sheets is interrupted.
As a solution to this, such a conventional technique was developed as disclosed in, for example, Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2002-68490, in which the floor belt is divided and a lever is provided to convey sheet materials while detecting the clearance between sheet materials (, which is roughly equivalent to the inclining state), to realize stable feeding out of the materials.
However, with the above-described method, a mechanism for operating the lever is necessary, which makes the structure of the device complicated, and there is such a drawback that sheet material may be damaged when the lever fails to function properly.